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PJ Grady Steering Rack/Shaft

Hello! I was just chatting with Rob the other day about a manual transmission refurbishment. He asked me how my steering shaft and rack were doing one year after purchase, so I figured I'd share here.

Steering shaft: Excellent. He told me we'd kind of experiment with the one he sent me, he added some rubber into it, which I believe most modern cars have. It's supposed to dampen the vibration and I was slightly concerned it might make the steering numb like so many new cars. Not the case. That little bit of rubber actually does a great job of insulating you from all the irritating little vibrations these cars are prone to have, especially on the highways. But it doesn't decrease steering feel or make it feel like you're driving a toy, you still have that responsive feedback, and you still have road feel, just without the juddering.

The rack: mine was an original 81 which had developed a bit of play in it, and apparently it was also a bit stiff if that makes any sense. I know it was stiff because turning became much easier with Rob's rack in the car. Night and day, and my steering was much more accurate! The only irritation is the steering being slightly off center, but that's because my alignment guy did it by hand with no computers... The rack installation was fairly easy some annoyance dealing with the bushings in there, but that can't really be helped. Rob tells me this thing is designed to never have to come back out of the car again. He claims to have never had to rebuild one of his own units. I've only had the thing for a year, so I can't attest to that, but I'm perfectly cool with installing a part that I won't have to worry about at least for a long time.

Basically, one year with both, and both are working as designed and have made an already smooth ride even smoother. (Other things that have helped over the years - Ed Uding's outriggers and boxed control arms)

I know other vendors have similar products out there, this is just my experience with Rob's!

Wish that rack had been available when I replaced my original rack. Sounds like a nice improvement.

We've been offering these rebuilds for about twenty five years except for a few years where we also offered DMCH racks so we probably had them available if you had checked with us. Sometimes if we're waiting for a new run of bearings or bushings there could be a delay but we are fully stocked for the foreseeable future.
Rob

Hello! I was just chatting with Rob the other day about a manual transmission refurbishment. He asked me how my steering shaft and rack were doing one year after purchase, so I figured I'd share here.

Steering shaft: Excellent. He told me we'd kind of experiment with the one he sent me, he added some rubber into it, which I believe most modern cars have. It's supposed to dampen the vibration and I was slightly concerned it might make the steering numb like so many new cars. Not the case. That little bit of rubber actually does a great job of insulating you from all the irritating little vibrations these cars are prone to have, especially on the highways. But it doesn't decrease steering feel or make it feel like you're driving a toy, you still have that responsive feedback, and you still have road feel, just without the juddering.

The rack: mine was an original 81 which had developed a bit of play in it, and apparently it was also a bit stiff if that makes any sense. I know it was stiff because turning became much easier with Rob's rack in the car. Night and day, and my steering was much more accurate! The only irritation is the steering being slightly off center, but that's because my alignment guy did it by hand with no computers... The rack installation was fairly easy some annoyance dealing with the bushings in there, but that can't really be helped. Rob tells me this thing is designed to never have to come back out of the car again. He claims to have never had to rebuild one of his own units. I've only had the thing for a year, so I can't attest to that, but I'm perfectly cool with installing a part that I won't have to worry about at least for a long time.

Basically, one year with both, and both are working as designed and have made an already smooth ride even smoother. (Other things that have helped over the years - Ed Uding's outriggers and boxed control arms)

I know other vendors have similar products out there, this is just my experience with Rob's!

Thank you for your observations as we appreciate your feedback and comments. I do want to clarify one thing however. The rubber dampened steering shaft was not an experiment but rather the first one we had sold and I did not have the chance to try one on my car before hand which is an exception to our usual practice. They are not modified rather but made that way by the manufacturer and have been used by other owners so it was not an experiment at all. We don't experiment on our customers. We like to keep them around!
Rob

Thank you for your observations as we appreciate your feedback and comments. I do want to clarify one thing however. The rubber dampened steering shaft was not an experiment but rather the first one we had sold and I did not have the chance to try one on my car before hand which is an exception to our usual practice. They are not modified rather but made that way by the manufacturer and have been used by other owners so it was not an experiment at all. We don't experiment on our customers. We like to keep them around!
Rob

Thanks for clarifying! We'd had that chat a little over a year ago and I was in the middle of a job search at the time, sorry for getting my wires crossed! I knew it was a new thing though, that much I remembered! Either way, I'm loving it!